orov-Pavlenko did I serve. Who made the name for
Legunov-Pochainin? I! But no-ow ..."

[10] All provincial towns.--Trans.

He sniveled, and sought to kiss the sub-professor.

"Yes! Despise me, brand me, ye honest folk. I play the tom-fool. I
drink ... I have sold and spilt the sacred ointment! I sit in a dive
with vendable merchandise. While my wife ... she is a saint, and pure,
my little dove! ... Oh, if she knew, if she only knew! she works hard,
she runs a modiste's shop; her fingers--the fingers of an angel--are
pricked with the needle, but I! Oh, sainted woman! And I--the
scoundrel!--whom do I exchange thee for! Oh, horror!" The actor seized
his hair. "Professor, let me, I'll kiss your scholarly hand. You alone
understand me. Let us go, I'll introduce you, you'll see what an angel
this is! ... She awaits me, she does not sleep nights, she folds the
tiny hands of my little ones and together with them whispers: 'Lord,
save and preserve papa.'"

"You're lying about it all, you ham!" said the drunken Little White
Manka suddenly, looking with hatred upon Egmont-Lavretzki. "She isn't
whispering anything, but most peacefully sleeping with a man in your
bed."

"Be still, you w--!" vociferated the actor beside himself; and seizing
a bottle by the neck raised it high over his head. "Hold me, or else
I'll brain this carrion. Don't you dare besmirch with your foul
tongue..."

"My tongue isn't foul--I take communion," impudently replied the woman.
"But you, you fool, wear horns. You go traipsing around with
prostitutes yourself, and yet want your wife not to play you false. And
look where the dummy's found a place to slaver, till he looks like he
had reins in his mouth. And what did you mix the children in for, you
miserable papa you! Don't you roll your eyes and gnash your teeth at
me. You won't frighten me! W--yourself!"

It required many efforts and much eloquence on the part of Yarchenko in
order to quiet the actor and Little White Manka, who always after
Benedictine ached for a row. The actor in the end burst into copious
and unbecoming tears and blew his nose, like an old man; he grew weak,
and Henrietta led him away to her room.

Fatigue had already overcome everybody. The students, one after
another, returned from the bedrooms; and separately from them, with an
indifferent air, came their chance mistresses. And truly, both these
and the others resembled flies, males and females, just flown apart on
the wi